


The Long Con

by Strawberry_day



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, May/December Relationship, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 02:40:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21640045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strawberry_day/pseuds/Strawberry_day
Summary: Roman actually had sex with Tabitha. But don't worry, he ends up with a stone cold killer bitch.
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Comments: 13
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter 1

He was terrified, which amused her. Even when he royally fucked up, which was few and far between these days, he wasn't terrified. He was usually too focused on concealment, pushing blame—which Gerri could snap him out of (he still responded so well to a firm hand). But on the subject of Alex, being a father to him, Gerri saw Roman stutter, become all sweaty palms and white knuckles. 

A Roman and Tabitha production, Alexander Roy lived in LA with his mother, an unknown until about age two. When Tabitha paid Gerri a visit at home, no less, little Roy in tow, “He looks too much like him, so I guess I have to tell him. I'm joking. Honestly, with you in the picture—I felt like OK there's stability, protection in this, I can tell him.” 

It felt wrong for Gerri to meet Roman’s son first. But also, somehow right for their world. The past four years of their marriage was only begrudgingly accepted as real. “The long con” is what Logan addressed them as, together. 

Initially angry, Roman knew better than to denigrate Tabitha. Gerri wouldn’t have it. In her girlfriend tenure, Tabitha got to see the inner workings of the Roys, Gerri understood her taking her time, weighing her options. 

Once Roman met Alex, all shaggy Southern California auburn hair and social butterfly antics, that anger melted away anyway. Hesitant interest lead to visitation, to regular weekends, which brought them to this moment—questions about full summers. 

“How do you feel about three months? Him living here? In our stuff?” Roman asked, bracing himself, fingers splayed on the white limestone of the kitchen island.

“Rome.” Gerri flipped her phone over, “I adore Alex. What’s the real issue?” 

She knew, but she knew better than to tell him. 

Roman threw his head back in a sigh, “It’s just—it's not a fucking holiday weekend. It’s a lot of time, like downtime, and what if, you know, he hates it.”

“Hates it?”

“Yeah, hates being away from his mom, his friends, the beach.” He sighed again, “Hates being here.” 

“With us?”

“Yeah—no. Not us, because you're perfect. But with me, you know his fuck head father.” 

Gerri drew her arm around Roman’s neck. He exhaled whatever breath he'd been holding, “Look at me.” 

Roman ignored her, nuzzling into the crutch of her elbow instead, “How do you always smell so good?” 

“Focus up.” Gerri grabbed the tuff of hair at the nape of his neck, “Alex does not see you as a fuck head. Your reflection of yourself is not his.” 

“Not yet. But he's only five, it'll happen.” 

Gerri pulled back, “You don't get to do this anymore.” 

Roman screwed his face up, annoyed at the sudden lack of contact, “Do what?” 

“This. Tell yourself expired stories. Present them as eternal, unshakable facts.” She pointed a finger at him, “You want to talk shit about yourself? Buy a journal. Because I won't listen.” 

“Deal, deal Lady Macbeth.” Roman grinned, grabbing for her. Gerri gave him the cold shoulder but he seized her wrist, spinning her back to him while in mid reach for her phone, “No no no—my dad can wait.” 

“I was going to text Tabitha.” Gerri couldn’t help a smile curl around her lips, “What do we want to say?” 

“Tell her. That I still can't believe one night when I was drunk AND on some weird, funky cut molly, I could not only get hard for her—but get her knocked up.” 

“I’ll let you handle that epiphany. What about the summer?”

“Hmmm” Roman sniffed around Gerri’s neck, as she typed. Losing the plot as usual, trying to gain something else. 

“Tell her……” Roman found it, that familiar Jo Malone scent mixed with exacting shredder knives that was all Gerri Kellman. “Tell her. I remember, I remember the night I was able to fuck her, because I saw you first. At that shitty awards thing and you told me I didn’t need you anymore. So, I went home. Pissed as shit, determined to not need you.”

Somewhere in that revelation, Gerri stopped typing. This was new information. Four years in, new information, “I wouldn’t recommend telling her or your son, at any age, that recollection.” 

Roman mimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key. Gerri eyed him, with that weighing, weathering look she gave when deciding whether she was in the mood to lean into his mischief or put her pump on his nuts and kill his bullshit. 

“Are your lips really closed for the night?” 

Roman nodded, smirkingly. 

“What use will you be to me then?” 

Roman dropped the smirk. 

“I'm going to invite Tabitha, we’ll put her up in Chelsea for the summer. Alex will have her close and you will have a safety net.” Gerri stated while typing, expecting a response she looked up. 

Roman lifted his eyebrows, silent. He decided to try again. A smirk reappearing. 

“You know, actually. I don’t need your mouth.” Gerri murmured, putting the phone down. 

Roman nodded, furiously. 

“I’m trying to arrange for your son to stay for the summer—and you’re focused on your cock.” 

Roman winced. 

“Let me focus on one little boy first, then I’ll deal with you.” Gerri nodded towards the staircase, “Upstairs. Now.” 

Roman charged towards the staircase, two stairs at a time, until he tripped at the stair before the landing and fell on his ass. Arm still hanging onto the bannister. 

“Good god.” Gerri shook her head and walked over. 

“I think I broke a hip. Come here, come here!” Roman raised his hands to her, fingers opening and closing, “Life alert! Help me!” 

Gerri reached to pull him up, when Roman pulled her down to him. 

“Roman!” A jumble of their bodies on the stairs. Gerri over him, both laughing. 

Roman framed her face with both his hands, “Gerri…”

“Yes?” 

“Thank you.”

“You are very welcome.” 

“Will you ride me into oblivion now?”

“Let’s not oversell how long you can last, my dear.”

With that Roman switched his hands to her underarms, her most ticklish spot.

The next morning, their clothes still littered the stairs.


	2. Absconding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boss grants Roman the vacation he's been after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been thinking about them again and thought, "Why not?"

Roman pushes them to take July off. A full month.

When this is first broached, late one night in her office, Gerri actually lets out a laugh. But Roman stands firm, one hand tucked into the breast of his suit jacket, leaning against the chair in front of her desk.

"We didn't take a honeymoon. You never leave this place before 11."

"That's.... untrue."

"Happy to hear you lie because," Roman slips his phone out of his pocket, "As the youths say, I have the receipts.” 

He scrolls, “Where should I start? Your texts saying "coming home now" or the geo-locator that told me when you were full of shit?”

Gerri smooths her hand over her desk, "You would have been a good lawyer, Rome."

"Don't try and sexily gaslight me right now. As man of this house you, me, and Alex we’re leaving. All of July. Como. I rented a house."

"Man of this house?"

"Ok. Lapdog of this house that gets very bitey when pummeled into working all the time with no vacation."

Gerri purses her lips, "I understand your frustration. And I want to compensate you for it. How about two weeks?"

"Two weeks?" Roman scoffs, "Two weeks is—it's like why even get my asshole bleached for two weeks. You fly in and you're already flying out."

"Well, I can go for two weeks. You can spend the other two having quality time with Alex."

"Who is going to enjoy my bleached asshole then?”

–––––

She caved. Which was becoming more frequent these days. She felt guilty about it, shameful even that with Baird and the girls she never wavered—work always came first. And with Roman, well, Roman had a way.

“What do you think?” Roman is ebullient in his choice of house. It’s tiny by Roy standards, but intimate by Kellman ones. Which, Gerri notes, Roman remembered. She told him in passing that she didn’t love the huge estates. 

“They remind me of the last days of the Romanoffs—very House of Special Purpose.”

“Alright. Saved in my brain cave. Will wiki later.”

And he had. Gerri pinches his arm, “It’s charming, Rome.” 

They spend the month in ease. Roman teaching Alex to dive, cannonball, flip off the dock into the azure lake. Gerri periodically forgetting her phone inside. 

Who is she these days? She asks herself, watching the boys push their wet hair from their forehead, arguing about which superheroes were superior. She should feel like a man. One of the hundreds she knew, who took on their second or god, sometimes third families. But as a woman, it was different. 

Somehow, in a weekly check-in with Tabitha, scheduled since they had her son half a world away, Gerri mentions this. 

“Watching them swim all day, they come inside looking so—healthy. Meanwhile, I come in looking, I don’t know, passed away.” 

Tabitha laughs, “I think that’s how a normal person looks after spending that much time with Roman and Alex Roy.” Her tone shifts, softens, “But really, I think if you focus on that, it will steal your joy.”

Gerri slides her sandals off, “Spoken like a true Californian.”

––––

Sometimes Roman does bedtime with Alex, sometimes Gerri does. Tonight, it’s her turn. She enjoys it, this loose role she plays with Alex. More of an aunt, a great-aunt really, than a step-mother. 

After the last call for books, she finds Roman at the dining room table. Nursing a gin fizz, picking at the grooves in the table’s wood, “He asleep?”

“Yes.” Gerri investigates the cocktail shaker, Roman always left her a serving. 

“I’ve been thinking.” Roman’s tone, already strained from seriousness. “This is gonna sound like I’m trying to hide him, but I’ve been thinking—I don’t want Alex to be around the family... as he gets older, and can like remember shit.” He pauses, “I think it's better. Maybe just a holiday, every couple of years.”

Gerri did know, “I think your nephew might say holidays are worse.”

Roman turns to face her, “So, nothing then?”

“He needs to be a part of the family. You just have to create boundaries.”

“How?” 

“Teach them how Alex is to be treated.” 

“Oh, like that’s ever worked.”

“Or be a coward.” Gerri strains what’s left of the fizz into a rocks glass. 

“Ugh, bitch.” 

–––––

With the actual child passed out from the sun, Gerri digs her nails into the right side of her child’s neck.

“I told you...” Gerri clicks her thumb underneath his chin, “To look at me.” 

Laying out, she’d been half-reading on the patio, listening to Roman, binoculars clad, tell her about two men he thought were playing with a handgun on a yacht. She watched his bare back as he narrated, his tanned shoulder blades moving as he repositioned the binoculars. He was still so slight. She wondered how he’d age. Would he eventually expand? It took so long to know with men. She decided to voice it.

“I wonder…” 

He half turns, squinting, a side profile of his five o’ clock shadow in the sun. 

“If you’ll ever be more than a skinny thing?”

“Want me to hit the weights? Cause I can fucking helicopter some kettlebells in.” 

Gerri puts her book aside, “No. Although…. I don’t mind seeing you, withering.”

Roman saunters over, dropping himself like dead weight onto the broad lounge.

“Well” He army crawls up to her feet, lifting his binoculars up, between her bare legs, “I aim to please.”

“Really?”

“Well, I aim to please—myself.”

“What are you looking for down there?”

“Just something to eat.” 

He starts to skate his teeth up the inside of her thigh, plucking her skin into his mouth as he escalates upward. An escalation that she doesn’t mind, because, for now, he’s taking his time. Stopping to nuzzle her, to drag his stubble against her inner thigh. 

“You know how plebeians have their dream home?” He mumbles against her.

“That’s a big word for you.”

“Fuck you. You know what I mean, poor people, how they have their dream home?”

Gerri just hums. 

“Well, this—” Roman bites her inner thigh, “This is mine.” And with that statement, he hitches her bathing suit to the side, and his mouth is on her. Open, over eager. 

She knocks her thigh against his head, “Slow down.”

Roman inhales. Listens, focuses his attention on her clit. Sucking it into a rhythm. 

He eases his index finger in, then, a minute later, his middle. 

It’s rather... sublime, but then, an escalation is nice. 

“So you aim to please.” She swallows, “Yourself.” 

It’s not a question, it’s a judgment. Roman’s too immersed to notice either. 

She grabs the top of his head making him meet her eyes, smiling the right mix of patronizing and pleased.

“Did you hear me?”

Roman nods. 

“You aim to please…?”

He gets it half out.

“Who?”

“You, you.” He gasps into her, cupping her with his lips, as her nails dig into his scalp.

She squeezes her knees into his back, collapsing him further into her. 

“I don’t think I heard you…”

He whines the syllables against her, attempting to keep up his pace. His brow soaked with sweat. This young billionaire heir, desperate to be successful under her pressure. This vice like grip she has on him. On his hair, on his ever present hard on. It's enough. It's enough today. And with that, she comes.


End file.
